Chris Weimer

Sorry. I never read (present tense) Ehrman. Seems like a cop-out answer without sound background to me.

Hrm, perhaps. I don't think so. If it was an interpolation, I'd think it'd be more specific than that. At least a little.

Hrm...interesting conclusion. I'll have to examine it further. At least we both agree that Paul is very ambiguous.

Perhaps he feels that he doesn't have to? He doesn't explain a lot of things. His letters aren't catechetical statements. They're epistolary sermons. (Or at least that's how they seem to me.) Descent of David was a non-issue for him.

Sounds appealing to me. Sounds likely to me, actually.

Real ones. OK, I'm convinced, it's not a strawman. But man we can do better than that. Actually, no one here (to the best of my knowledge) has argued that point.

However, I don't think we can actually write it off completely. Obviously, Paul's people know something. He does allude to his gospel already known in Galatians, and certainly the people were taught something by the other apostles. However, I seriously doubt it's what we would find in the current gospels, virgin births, father Joseph, or anything silly like that. That stuff you're right, we should expect Paul at least to know and mention something about it. Which is why I've entirely written off the birth narratives as utter fiction.

We're going to have to draw a line between apologists and me.

Someone mentioned that already. I agree, it would be very helpful. Unfortunately, we got what we have so we might as well work with it to the best of our abilities.

Chris

PS - Glad to have you have back Vork. Like the new smilies? I don't.

TedM

It looks to me like Romans 4-5 says Jesus was an Israelite (NASB):

The question is still whether Paul says that because Jesus really was a human Israelite or because scriptures speaks of the Messiah as an Israelite, so he must have been an Israelite, regardless of what the reality was about Jesus' existence.

ted

krosero

If so, Paul could have said that Christ had knowledge of sin, having come into a sinful realm, where humans labor under the superseded Law of Moses -- or something like that. "Born under the law" is a most peculiar and risky way of getting across a point that an unearthly Christ knew sin (or of getting across any point about Christ and sin, in case I've misunderstood what you've said; I honestly don't find the interpretation easy to understand, and a straightforward human descent from David is a much simpler solution; Paul could not have been misunderstood that way). Why say "born under the law", which sounds like a straightforward way of referring to those human beings who labor under the law?

The Son of God can be Jewish if he's born on earth of the seed of David, and that's a simple solution. How can a being who never touches the earth be descended from David? How can you come from the seed of David without entering the lineage of David's human descendants?

"Mystical mumbo-jumbo", is the usual answer here. That does seem to get mythicists out of the jam.

But I'm not asking how or why the ancients could have scientifically conceived of a spirit descending from human seed. (Although I do think we can ask how they conceived of human seed resulting, per their pre-scientific understanding, in an unearthly being; and I think they would have said that God, or a god, incarnated on earth and was born of a woman, of human seed). If you prefer, let me ask why Paul does not associate Christ with David in a way that really points to a relationship that a spirit might have to a human being, rather than use phrases that point to human descent? What I mean is, why not say that Christ fulfilled the promise of David, or something like that, as a way to refer to the promise of the Messiah? (If I were Paul and I believed in a Christ who descended only to the firmament, I'd have spent scrolls and scrolls reflecting on how Christ replaced the need for a human Messiah, rather than saying that Christ came from the seed of David). Why speak of human seed, except to speak of other human beings and gods incarnated as human beings? Your answer is, to identify him as Jewish. Why not say, "Christ, the Jew," or "Christ, the servant of Israel"? Why the earthly way of talking about a supposedly unearthly association?

Amaleq13

You can delete all the text and one of us will likely delete the empty post. And, yes, that is what happened when Toto saw it.

I don't pay attention to the notifications of changes like that and I thought something had gone horribly wrong with the color on my laptop.

How can a being who was conceived without any actual seed involved be considered descended from David?

Whether that question is answered by an appeal to Mary's geneaology or to the notion of adoption, the real answer to all of them is faith, isn't it?

That is ultimate the answer to all the "mysteries" of Christianity that cannot be rationally explained. Why should Paul's beliefs be any different?

Vorkosigan

What does "Law" mean for Paul?

How can you claim that Jesus is related to David without furnishing proofs of it? Yet we had to wait until Matthew to get that. And note that Paul knew Jesus' family, on the historicist account. Basically, there is no way to know whether a specific individual was of "the seed of David." If Paul had wanted to claim Jesus was an earthly messiah born on earth, why did he never just say so?

But the whole argument is over whether this really is an "earthly way". Whenever the early epistles speak of Jesus, they never refer to him in earthly and concrete language, but always with vague verbs like manifesting. They never refer to any of the alleged events of his life. Why not?

You could just flip these questions around. If Jesus' saving death occurred on Earth and was a shameful humiliation by Pilate, followed by a hurried burial in someone else's tomb, why is Colossians 2:15 so clear that it did not happen on earth? Why are the demon spirits who inhabit the place outside of time and space said to have executed him? Why does 1 Tim 3:16 say Jesus was seen by angels and glorified in heaven? Why does 2 Philippians say that he only took on the form of a man and was of divine nature from the first? Couldn't any of them have mentioned that he got executed in Jerusalem by Pilate?

Sure, appealing to mystical metaphorical mumbo-jumbo will get the historicist out of a jam....

Really, it comes down to the whole problem of clashing interpretive frameworks. It makes no sense to regard an earthly seed of David as having been executed by demonic powers in the place outside of space and time (POST). No matter how you slice it, one of those must be metaphorical/symbolic. It makes more sense, given Paul's emphasis on the saving death of Jesus, to regard his 'seed of David' comments as nothing more than mumbo-jumbo window dressing.

Vorkosigan

krosero

I'm with Burton on this one: I just don't see any indication in Paul of a belief in the virgin birth. Nor do I see any indication in Paul of knowledge of Matthew's or Luke's genealogies. The virgin birth and/or the genealogies were worked out from faith and perhaps some historicist clues; I don't know where Paul got his belief in Christ's descent from David. If he got it entirely from scripture, my argument would still remain that Paul was likeliest to talk about a connection to David's seed if he regarded Christ as an earthly human being and a Jew of the nation of Israel. If he did not regard him as these things, I just think he would have talked about something less earthly than David's actual seed.

Chris Weimer

The virgin birth was quite a brain-twister. If you notice, neither Paul nor Mark include the virgin birth, and those who did include it or subscribed to it bent a lot of rules substantiating it. It's an obvious addition to the religion, so appeal to it is not likely here.

jakejonesiv

Ben,

Well, yes karta sarka does support the view of a fleshly Jesus. It may seem to be an unusual way of expressing the idea, but the church fathers loved philosophy.

We see in the 2d century church fathers you quote above (nice research) the battle between the docetic postion and the proto-orthodoxy.

The mistake being made in these discussions is to assume the docetic statements such as Phillipians 2:7-8 and Romans 8:3 are by the same author as the "karta sarka" passages such as Romans 1:3. Shouldn't the discussion of this assumption be step #1 of the process?

These two groups of passages are in direct contradiction. This would suggest they do not originate from the same author, or even the same "school."

In terms of the great 2nd century christological debates, the first mentioned group supports the docetic position of Marcion and some gnostics. The second mentioned group of passages support the proto-orthodox position, and the citations provided by Ben at the top of this thread provide irrefutable proof of this.

(Note: I am not interested in any attempts to harmonize the docetic and flesh passages. The 2d century debate proves that there was disagreement at the critical time).

Both sides accused the other of modifying scripture to support their own interpretations. Tertullian claims Marcion was mutilating scripture. The Marconites claimed their opponents were adding to it. Obviously, this battle was being waged to a large degree in the very words of the scriputres: in a time before our oldest extant texts. This makes problematic the unstated assumption in all these related threads that the alleged Paul actually penned the "according to the flesh" passages.

We know that the conflict between the proto-orthodox church and the Marcionite churches was huge. A key component of this conflict was the reality of the body of Jesus. I don't see how anyone can dispute this. To ignore the historical situation in the "karta sarka" debate is, IMHO, is :banghead: astounding.

Jake Jones IV

TedM

As you know I'm still new to this Marconite stuff.. I find the idea VERY intriguing that the Marconites claimed their opponents were adding to scripture. Can you provide a source or quote?

thanks,

ted

Ben C Smith

Then you have misapprehended my argument. I am arguing a point of Greek. On those other threads that I linked to the very meaning of the Greek phrase κατα σαÏ?κα was at issue. And it was the very meaning of that phrase that my posts addressed.

I produced three church fathers dealing, not with other miscellaneous instances of κατα plus the accusative, not with a modern LSJ entry on our preposition of choice, not with some other vague connection of a different stripe, but with Romans 1.3 itself. How is that circular? And surely it is relevant, if only because Ignatius, Irenaeus, and Origen spoke native Greek, and we do not.

Are you seriously suggesting that in a debate over the meaning of an ancient Greek prepositional phrase you would pass up the opportunity to interview three speakers of ancient Greek on the subject?

The mythicists on those other threads did not appear to regard it as a red herring. Someone even stated that κατα σαÏ?κα was an odd way of indicating physical descent (in which case one wonders why Paul used it to indicate physical descent from Abraham in Romans 4.1 and physical kinship to fellow Jews in Romans 9.3). If you think it is a red herring, that is fine, but my post was addressing those who do not.

Quite agreed.

It is not anything like that at all, Michael. 1 Corinthians 9.20 informs us that for Paul there were at least two classes of people, those under the law and those (like himself, for reasons explained in Galatians 5.18) not under the law. Galatians 4.4 claims that Jesus Christ was born into the former category.

It is not about having the same interpretation. It is about being aware or unaware of alternate interpretations. That the three authors I cited not only interpreted Romans 1.3 in a certain way but also used it as a drop-dead prooftext implies that these native Greek speakers were unaware of an alternate interpretation. Could they have been mistaken? Of course. Is the argument final? Of course not. But is it positive evidence for one reading over another? You bet it is.

You may be right, but to use this possibility as an excuse to throw up the hands in defeat is a council of despair. It is not as if we are lacking in evidence.

Chris rightly cautioned that the Pauline usage should take first place. Romans 4.1 and 9.3 both link κατα σαÏ?κα with literal ancestry or kinship. Is there no benefit in following up on such evidence with regard to claims that κατα σαÏ?κα really points to some unearthly sphere?

Ben.